MY PHILOSOPHY
I want my work to reflect my own philosophy of having a happy, healthy, fun, exciting and balanced life and being at peace with whatever life offers and has to throw at me.
My vision is to teach people tools to become self-sufficient and encourage people to rely on their own skills (utilise what they have) to solve their own ‘problems’. So that they can learn the tools to improve their lives and continue healing outside of counselling. To be masters of their own life.
But most of all, I went into practice as a holistic counsellor in Wollongong to satisfy my need to have adventure, work things out, put things in order, decifer why someone feels a certain way, why they think a certain way, be my own boss, spend time with my family (they’re actually nice people!), live the lifestyle of my choice, laugh at how seriously we take ourselves, talk about the weird and wonderful things I’ve tried, and last, but not least, to experience being of some use to somebody. To come home at the end of the day knowing that I have offered some relief to someone who needed it. And if they choose to believe it’s me who helped them, then so be it. Who am I to challenge that. 😉
MY STORY
As a young kid I loved animals. I wanted to go on safari to Africa to see all the exotic animals especially the elephants. I daydreamed alot about this. One evening, I was watching the Cosby Show and Theo (the son on the show) was going to Africa to volunteer and help out with the starving children. That episode changed my life. I decided then and there that I was no longer going to be a Vet, I was going to help people. I haven’t quite made it to Africa but I have followed through on helping people.
I got into University, started taking classes in Psychology and was confronted with all these theories and statistics – not a word was spoken about how to actually use these things in a therapy session – but they stressed how important it was to learn how abnormal everyone was.
Although there were classes that I enjoyed and I did learn alot about how the mind works, I never learnt how to talk to people in session. Worse still, I felt that I wasn’t allowed to use my own thoughts to help out.
In truth, my degree put me off becoming a Psychologist and I graduated with a sense of dread – oh no, now what?
I did what any self respecting lost student did, I went travelling. Backpacking through Europe, one summer as a Camp Counsellor in the U.S. and backed it up with living in London for 2 years.
The itch to help people was still there but I didn’t know what to do. I enrolled in a graduate diploma of counselling course (Australian College of Applied Psychology) which restored my faith in counselling and I actually learnt how to talk to people and conduct a counselling session! Hoorah.
I entered the workforce working for different non-government organisations, not yet feeling ready to ‘help’ someone as I felt it was a huge responsiblity to have someone who needed support and not be confident to give it. It scared me to no end. All the while, I worked under the impression that I was building my confidence and my life experience. After all, who would take a 25 year old seriously. I surely didn’t!
Everyday, I would come home exhausted, feeling drained and thinking to myself “there’s gotta be more to life than this”. Sure, I earned an income, I was able to continue travelling, but I never did feel that I was making a huge difference to people. “It’s because I’m not directly counselling people, if I get a counselling job, that’ll fulfill me” I told myself.
So, that’s what I did. I got a counselling job. Initially it was fun, exciting but after some months I would come home exhausted again, with the same old thought “there’s gotta be more to life than this”. Exhausted and cynical I tried meditation. I joined a meditation group. After six months of periodically turning up I sat myself down and had a stern talking to and said “If you really want changes, you have to commit to changing”. It took some time, but I eventually started meditating on a regular basis. Weekly at first, building up to daily over a five year period (slow learner I know!).
During this time, I had one of those ‘coincidental meetings’ that as the saying goes was a turning point in my life. During a Christmas lunch, I sat next to a colleague who I didn’t know very well and we got chatting about the book I was carrying (Annette Noontil – The Body is the Barometer of the Soul). I explained that it was about how we store unresolved emotions and thoughts in our body, that when left untreated will eventually cause illness and disease. I was quite self-conscious talking about this as I thought she would think I was a nutter. It turned out that she was enrolled in a Steiner Education course in the new year and had also been attending Your Hidden Potential workshops with Dr James Walker, studying something called Accelerated Pattern Shift.
Accelerated Pattern Shift or APS was the beginning of the end of my old life, my old way of thinking. The techniques of APS are based on the principles of A Course In Miracles (ACIM), something else I knew nothing about. The ‘Course’ states that peace lies within us, if only we stopped projecting all our beliefs onto other people and blaming everyone for everything that went wrong in our lives and realising that it is our own thinking that upsets us. This I had to see for myself.
I enrolled in a weekend workshop and before my very eyes Dr Walker was demonstrating how to withdraw the judgements, the negative beliefs by forgiving them using a very simple statement incorporating deep breathing. I was probably the most skeptical person in the room, and until I tried it for myself I was not going to swallow any of it. I am extremely grateful that I was wrong. Forgiveness actually worked!
I forgave someone who had done me wrong from an event in my past. It was such a huge relief that I asked if we could do it again. Again, it produced relief. By no means, did it completely eliminate all the hurt but the sense of relief gave me hope that I could actually make the changes I was seeking. From then on, I enrolled in all the workshops and eventually realised that I could use this technique in a counselling session and completed the practitioner training.
During this time I discovered energy healing, once again a skeptic, I would not believe it until I tried it for myself. I didn’t really feel much the first time but for some reason I tried it again. This time I felt some heat and some tingling so deduced that ‘something must be happening’. A year or so later, I enrolled in Reiki classes and eventually became a Reiki Master.
I became very passionate about APS, ACIM, Reiki, spirituality in general. I bought tarot cards and crystals, joined drum circles, discussions groups, Blue Moon circles, women’s circles and made a trip to Uluru to meditate around the great rock welcoming in the new energy of the Age of Aquarius.
All the while, doing a job where I couldn’t incorporate any of these interests. In the end the call to work with people on a more spiritual level, incorporating all the different aspects of our lives, was too strong and I eventually went into practice for myself offering holistic counselling and energy healing. I continue to search for ways to incorporate alternative concepts into my counselling and healing practice which makes everyday at work fun, exciting, challenging, fulfilling.
What new adventures lie before me, you’ll have to wait and see….
MY QUALIFICATIONS
I completed a Bachelor of Science (Psychology) degree at UNSW in 1998, a Graduate Diploma of Counselling at Australian College of Applied Psychology (ACAP) in 2003, completed various short courses with the Institute of Family Practice (systemic therapy) from 2008-2011, and obtained my Practitioner Certification for Accelerated Pattern Shift in 2013.
Over the past 6 years I have been working as a qualified counsellor working with children, young people and adults providing therapy, psycho-education groups and self-development workshops.
I am also an energetic healer with a Master of Usui Reiki and have completed various energetic healing workshops including chakra cleansing and balancing. I am currently completing ‘Ignite Your Spirit’ Therapist Training with Shanti Mission Harmony Centre.
I now work as a Holistic Counsellor & Business Mentor online, combining all the knowledge and skills I have developed over the years, working more holistically, spiritually and energetically.
FREE FACEBOOK GROUP
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If you’d like to increase confidence & empowerment, overcome doubts and fears, get yourself ‘out there’ so that you can grow your business, increase visibility and exposure, get more clients & live their dream lifestyle (quality family time, travelling, financial security, caring for parents, happy & healthy life …)
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